Kidnappers, plotter Alstom's India head kept in touch

The Noida-based businessman, who plotted the kidnapping of a multinational company’s top official, was present at the crime scene and kept on instructing his accomplices till they reached Meerut along with the victim, the police said on Sunday.

Akhand Pratap Singh, who owns a garment store in Noida Sector 18 market, was arrested on Sunday for masterminding the abduction of Rathin Basu, country president and managing director of power industry supplier Alstom T&D India Limited.

Basu was kidnapped on Saturday evening when he was returning to his Noida Sector 44 home from his office in Sector 65 in his Toyota Camry.

He was later rescued during a joint operation by Meerut and Noida police.

“Singh was on the spot when Basu was kidnapped. He was alone in his SUV and followed the kidnappers’ car till Meerut. He unlocked his bungalow and left the place. But he was monitoring each activity of his accomplices from his car,” said a senior police officer.

When the accused realised that the police have increased patrolling in the area and started house-to-house search, he asked his men to vacate the house, the officer said.

“He drove back to Delhi and parked his car at a parking lot in Connaught Place. He took an auto-rickshaw to Kashmere Gate, from where he boarded a bus to Chandigarh. Singh then spoke to his family and realised that police are interrogating them. After, that he decided to come back,” the officer said.

Singh, a mechanical engineer from Greater Noida Institute of Technology (GNIT), got married few years back and has a one-year-old daughter.

Industrialists scaredIndustrialists and top executives of Noida-based multi-national companies are living in fear after Rathin Basu, India head of Alstom T&D, was kidnapped from Noida on Friday.

Though, he was rescued on Saturday, that has not been able to alleviate the worries of industrialists.

Members of the Association of Greater Noida Industries on Sunday asked the police to take measures for the safety of industrialists. District magistrate Kumar Ravikant Singh has promised adequate security.